Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

[75lespaul]

THIS has always been my weak point. I'm sure a lot of people who are mixingly challenged would love to hear the advice from those of us who mix very well. What are we doing wrong? What is the limit we should follow as far as reverb use, compressor use, alcohol use? How do you guys get your stuff to sound so "airy" and seperated, especially hard rock and metal. What is the best way to mix vocals and get them to stand out instead of sounding buried.

Did I miss anything guys?

[GoMano]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

If it were 15 years ago I would answer this thread's question with "turn knobs & press buttons until it sounds good" -but since most don't have that luxury any longer (they use a mouse and look at a computer monitor) I'll say "drag & drop, put in plug-ins and tweak sh*t until it sounds good"

Seriously though; Reverb (from a box) is obviously a spatial effect, and these days engineers use it to mimick REAL spaces, and very sparingly too, as opposed to say, Phil Spector productions, where he heeped gobs & gobs of it on EVERYTHING. Why? To create space. Just listen to any records from the 60's and 70's - just swimming in reverb. Don't do that! A cool thing to do since you probably have a gajillion plug-in versions of cool reverbs is, use a totally differnt one on every instrument. Of course they did that too years ago, but were pretty much limited to only two, or if lucky, three - plates & springs. Later we had the majorly *****en 224 and 224x, and other cool early digital & analogue electronic verbs.
Sometimes I even RECORD reverb returns so I not just save tracks (I don't have "unlimited tracks' like most folks - it's an "old-school studio") can eq and pan reverb on certain tracks for whatever reason - and let the automation do it in the mix. Just use it sparingly. Sometimes subtle delay will do for you what reverb can't. Allan Holdsworth for example NEVER uses reverb on his guitar - always delay, to acheive reverb (and of course, that's what reverb is anyway).

Dynamics are something altogether different. You can use compression/expansion and limiting to very seriously improve a recording. Especially on things that cause sonic fidelity problems, like inconsistent drums, bass & vocals. If you're unfamiliar with the use of compression, experiment on vocals lets say, with a ratio of 2:1 at first, and tweak it gradually while simultaneously tweaking the threshold & output gain. You'll eventually discover that somewhere around 3:1 and 4:1 at -10 and +2 sounds really cool on vocals, but way different for bass. The general idea is, set it so it squishes when peaks are too high and to raise the floor when the level is too low.

Compression is the single greatest thing to happen to recorded audio - ever.

[75lespaul]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

Bro, you are a WEALTH of information. You should make a video and make us pay for it. I'd buy it.

[75lespaul]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

[ratherdashing]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

My three golden rules of mixing:


1. Every track needs its own space in the EQ spectrum, and the stereo spectrum. Draw two lines on a piece of paper, label one as EQ, and the other as Stereo. Make marks on the lines to indicate approximately where you think each track should end up (the EQ line goes from bass on the left to treble on the right btw). It's ok to have some overlap, but you don't want everyone crowding into the same space. Once you've got it planned out, EQ and pan your tracks to match, and make corrections if something sounds totally out of whack.

2. For vocals: gate -> compressor -> EQ -> reverb. Don't get carried away with any of them though.

3. If a track sounds buried in the mix, resist the urge to crank it up. The best things to do are: a. turn everything else down, b. fix the EQ, or c. add some compression. Especially a.

Hope that helps.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

As an alternate to #1 above, you can make a rectangle on a piece of paper, label the x axis "pan" and the y axis as "reverb". Draw circles representing where you want each track to end up. You still have to map out the EQ seperately though.

[75lespaul]

Re: Mixing techniqes...keep em coming!

Yeah, I have a hard time with that turning everything down part.